Having one’s fundamental belief systems challenged is hard.

When those core beliefs are proven, through science, to be incorrect, it is even harder to let go. Sometimes it takes days, months and even years to let the new information unfold and develop an understanding of the new concepts. Sometimes we refuse to let go. Sometimes we blame science and hold on to our outdated beliefs.

Treating Knowledge As Stuff And People As Containers For That Stuff

In the Western world, we treat knowledge (facts) as substance. We have a belief that we can open someone’s head and pour knowledge into it. We have treated education, whether at conferences or in educational institutions, as a substance that we can pour into a receptacle. The trouble is that treating knowledge as a substance is incorrect. And believing that our minds are receptacles able to receive, record and replay knowledge at a whim is incorrect. Getting knowledge into our minds is a lot more complicated than we thought. Even further, getting us to act on that knowledge requires a different set of steps than getting us to remember it.

We have also bought into some powerful theories (hypotheses, assumptions, guesses) that the best way to pour that knowledge into people is based on how people want to receive that knowledge. We’ve adopted beliefs that people have their own preferences or learning styles to receive information. We believe that different generations have different learning styles too. All of these points have now been proven to be wrong. These theories were not rooted in facts, science and proven research.  People are not receptacles that you can just pour information into and expect results. It just doesn’t work that way. (If it did, we would have a lot more successful conferences and education institutions!)

In a previous post I discussed my own challenge with Learning To Unlearn, Learn And Relearn, especially as it applies to education theories and models. I’m still shedding old models and adopting new ones. Here are a few I’m shedding.

Three Old Brain Science Education Models To Shed And Stop Promoting

1. Learning Styles

Learning Styles Theory is a hypothesis that one style of instruction or learning might be good for one person and not the other. Learning Styles are tendencies to learn or think in a specific way, for example to think globally (holistically) versus logistically (sequentially or one thing at a time). Instructors should then present information both globally and logistically to meet different learner’s needs. Some people refer to it as cognitive styles (how we think). There are more than 71 learning style theories from David A. Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory to Dunn & Dunn’s Learning Styles Inventory to Myers-Brigg Personality Traits. But are they based on solid science?

Learning Styles And Pedagogy: A Systematic And Critical Review examines 13 models. It highlights the holes in these theories and their lack of empirical research and evidence.

The Association for Psychological Science (APS) published a 2009 report in Psychological Science in the Public Interest on learning styles (including the VAK/VARK strategies). The APS researchers found that the learning styles research was flawed, lacking and in most cases absent. Their conclusion: “At present, there is no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning styles assessments into general educational practice.”

2. VAK Or VARK

VAK/VARK strategies are probably one of the best known learning style theories within the hospitality and meetings industry. (They were originally known as VAK strategies and later updated to VARK.) It posits that each person has a preferred way of receiving information to learn. People are identified as visual (V), auditory (A), reading/writing (R) or kinesthetic learners (K). The theory claims that visual learners have a preference for seeing (think in pictures), auditory learners favor listening (lectures), reading/writing learners choose words and kinesthetic learners prefer learning by experience.

Cognitive scientists have proven that people do differ in visual and auditory memory abilities and some are better at visual or auditory memories than others. But we don’t store all of our memories as sights or sounds. We store memories based on their meaning. Meaning is independent of sensory details.

Cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham has written and discussed why VAK/VARK strategies are incorrect. See for yourself.

Similarly, neuroscientist John Medina’s Brain Rule #10 says that “Vision trumps all other senses.” Interesting that brain science says the vision is our most dominant sense, taking up half our brain’s resources. That fact alone flies in the face of VARK’s theory that only some people are visual learners.  All of us are predisposed for visual learning.

3. Multiple Intelligences

In the mid 1980s, Harvard Professor Howard Gardner’s book, Frames of Mind, introduced the theory of multiple intelligences to much fanfare. He proposed that there are eight intelligences: Bodily-Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Musical, Naturalist and Spatial.

Educators were not so much interested in Gardner’s theory as they were with three claims that got associated with his work. He has clarified his views and these claims in his book Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons.

Claim A: There are eight types of intelligence.
Evaluation: Westerns get stuck on the word intelligence, seeing it as fixed and not something that can change or be improved. Amazingly Gardner used the words intelligence and abilities interchangeably. He himself has commented that these intelligences are actually talents and that the theory of multiple talents would not have received as much attention.

Claim B: Instructors should teach to all eight intelligences. (This includes conference presenters.)
Evaluation: Gardner has been public about his disagreement that education should cater to all eight intelligences. 

Claim C: Instructors should introduce new content using all of the intelligences.
Example, when discussing recession, students should write poems about it, sing songs, look for evidence of recession in nature, etc.
Evaluation: We can get others interested in content if we appeal to their talents, abilities or strengths. However, that doesn’t mean these eight abilities are interchangable. For example mathematical concepts should be learned mathematically not linguistically. (Example: Writing a song about how to swing a bat does not improve a baseball player’s swing.)

My Oath To Learn To Unlearn, Learn And Relearn

As we as a society move forward, I want to embrace unlearning as a trait. I don’t want to be stubborn, holding on to outdated beliefs that I perceive as accurate or popular. I’m making a vow to continue to shed outdated models and embrace new ones. You can even call me out when you think I’m being obstinate.

So, what models are you having a hard time letting go? What are you having to unlearn?

“The secret to learning new things is to be willing to unlearn–even if your behaviors previously brought success.” ~ Marcia Connor.

Unlearning, Learning And Relearning About How The Brain Impacts Conferences And Events

I’m been in an unlearning funk for the past year or so. I didn’t want to give up familiar education models. They were comfortable to me. I had success using them. My beliefs were grounded in them. My interpretations of my experiences appeared consistent with these models. Unfortunately, my own experiences became my bias. I found myself embracing a psychological phenomenon called the confirmation bias. (Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses, independently of whether they are true. ~ Wikipedia)

In the mid 1980s, I was wrapping up my post-baccalaureate work on education and adult learning. I was also teaching in the public school system and was tapped to develop district-wide curriculum using the education trends of the time: learning styles, VAK & VARK strategies, right brain versus left brain hemisphere dominance, multiple intelligences and more. These learning style theories were the rage of that day. The Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development (of which I was a member) ran a long series on the subject and even ASTD provided multiple journal articles on these new models.  I read and put into practice anything I could get my hands on by these theorists: Dunn & Dunn, Neil Fleming, Howard Gardner, Eric Jensen, Myers-Briggs and others.

Shedding Old Education Theories That Have Been Debunked

Today, much of what I was taught in post-graduate work, in my early professional education years and what I read and studied for nearly a decade has been exposed as vague theories lacking empirical research. I’ve discovered that I was a willing and enthusiastic propagator of what is now known as misinformation. Thankfully, some of the instructional techniques I picked up were actually beneficial to people but not for the reasons I thought.

I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m talking about and how it applies to conferences, education, meetings and events. I’m talking about the buzz on how the brain learns, science vs. theory and its affect on your conference education design.

Does The Discussion Of How The Brain Learns Impact Your Conference Education Design?

I’ve been sitting on this post for nearly six months now, waiting for the right time. I know it will cause a stir in many of my colleagues, some for and some against. When I saw that ASTD’s Learning Circuit Blog July question of the month was about brain learning and eLearning design, I knew the time was right.

So here’s my spin on their question: Does the discussion of how the brain learns impact your conference education design?

In short, yes. How the brain works and learns should impact your conference education design. Actually, it’s imperative for a successful attendee/learner conference experience. If you design your conference with the brain in mind, one that engages as many senses as possible and follows some basic, well-researched and proven brain learning principles, your attendees will have a more benefical conference experience. They’ll learn more that can be applied to their profession.

However, if you are using old education theories such as learning styles, VAK or VARK strategies, right vs. left brain, and if you are hiring speakers that promote these old models, you are disseminating myths, untruths and misinformation. Unintentionally, you have embraced the false doctrine of a quasi-evangelical crusade to transform your education. In reality, it’s a way for you to spend more money on these consultant’s theories and propaganda. Let’s remember that a theory is just a hypothesis, conjecture or a guess. It is not proven, researched fact. I’ll provide more of the facts about these theories in an upcoming post. Or you could just read Wikipedia on Learning Styles and see some of the facts yourself.

So before you start screaming I’m a heretic and have sold-out to the dark side, separate your confirmation bias and emotions and think logically for a moment. If researchers have proven that the world is round, do you still want to believe that it is flat because your eyes see the horizon? Or could your own misaligned preconceptions be misguiding you? Your brain doesn’t always tell you the truth. And in case you missed it, my analogy of the misperception that the world is flat applies to the education theories of learning styles, VAK/VARK strategies, brain hemisphericity, Myers-Briggs and more.

What have you had to unlearn recently? Why do you think unlearning old beliefs is so hard? How have you adapted to new research that is contrary to your old thoughts?

Let’s face it. Most conference education is lackluster. Actually, most of it stinks, is dull and could be used to line bird cages.

Generally, our customers say they attend conferences and meetings to learn and network. Yet, we as conference organizers continue to do the same things we’ve always done when planning our meetings–focus on the logistics and details.

Ultimately, the biggest barrier to better conference education is the speaker. Conference organizers typically secure industry experts as instructors for their event. We often equate their experience and expertise with the ability to communicate effectively. We assume that if they are industry veterans, they must also be good at delivering presentations. We think, “Surely they’ve had a lot of practice presenting.”

Experience And Practice

So is experience synonymous with practice? Aren’t they the same thing?

Experience means that you are simply engaged in an activity. I’ve been driving since I was 16 years old. I’m an experienced driver–that is I’ve done a lot of driving. But I’m not well-practiced, because for most of that time, I’ve not tried to improve my driving. Sure, I did work at improving my driving skills when I first got behind the wheel. My father took me out to large parking lots so I could practice driving. I took driver’s education in school. After a semester of driver’s ed and several months of practice, I had adequate skills to drive. So I stopped trying to improve.

Practice means that you are trying to improve your performance. Practice is hard. It takes time, intention and work. Practice involves more than engaging in activity. Athletes practice. Musicians practice. Actors practice. Yet most industry speakers rarely practice presenting.

The Importance Of Helping Our Industry Speakers Practice

To improve our conference education, we need to help our industry speakers practice developing content and presenting information. We need to help them practice the craft of effective presentations.

Here are three things that event professionals can do to help speakers practice.

1. Encouraging presenters to consciously try to improve.
It sounds obvious yet can yield positive results. As the conference organizer, set an average overall goal for all of your speakers’ presentations. Start with an overall 80% average favorable score. Share that goal with the speakers. Encourage them to do all they can to ensure getting an 80%, or better, rating in their sessions. Help them see the attendees as learners and participants. Consider rewarding the top quartile and not inviting back the bottom 25%.  Host pre-conference speaker webinars and discuss the goal of improving education sessions and engaging the participants months in advance of the conference. 

2. Provide activities and programs for speakers to improve their presentations.
Provide speaker webinars on how to design effective presentations. Provide podcasts on good adult instructional strategies and tips. Distribute short, insightful articles about designing effective presentations. Hold a half- or full-day pre-conference training session for all speakers and allow them the opportunity to practice five- or seven-minute presentations for their peers who can provide immediate feedback.

3. Provide better feedback and evaluation systems for each education session.
Practice entails getting effective feedback from knowledgeable people. Writers have readers and editors. Sports teams have coaches. Actors have directors and producers. How can our conference speakers improve unless there is some valid assessment of how they are doing? Without detailed feedback, they will never know what changes they need to make to become better presenters.

This means conference organizers must adopt better evaluation systems for each presentation. Providing an electronic survey with one question per session is not enough. The evaluation process should first occur at the end of each presentation.

Event organizers should ask attendees to rate

• the relevance of session
• the program’s content
• the pace and timing of the presentation
• the facilitator’s delivery style
• the facilitator’s knowledge
• if the facilitator met the program’s learning objective
• if the printed description matched the presentation
• if they learned anything new or if it was reinforcement
• if they will be able to apply what they learned
• if the content is important to them 

We must also ask open ended questions like:

• What did you find most valuable from the session?
• What did you find least valuable from the session?
• How will you apply the information you learned?
• Other comments.

Event organizers should also be taking head counts at the beginning of each presentation and again 15 minutes before the end of the presentation to see if there has been a mass exodus from the room indicating a poor session. Even further, we should calculate the number of evaluations returned to the number of attendees. This is another indicator of the presentation as often people won’t complete poor evaluations because they don’t want to hurt their peers.

Until conference organizers take education evaluations seriously, education sessions will continue to be mediocre as feedback to presenters is limited.

If conference organizers want to improve education sessions, they must find ways to invest in industry speakers and allow them opportunities to practice presenting. That practice leads to improvement.

What are some other ways meeting professionals could allow industry speakers to practice presenting? What items do you evaluate for your education sessions?

Time to do some weeding and pruning of your annual conference education strategies.

Do you landscape your yard?

If you live in a condo or apartment, you may not have a yard. Although someone is usually paid to maintain the facility’s grounds and landscaping.

Landscaping involves transforming the natural environment of a specific part of land. Almost any type of land can be landscaped. It includes working with living elements like plant and animal life often referred to as flora and fauna, natural landforms, a variety of terrains, various land elevations and sometimes bodies of water. It may also include human elements like walls, fences, buildings and natural elements like weather and sunlight.

Landscaping is both an art and science that requires good design and observation skills. A good landscaper studies the elements of nature and construction, and blends them together successfully. Experienced landscapers know that the environment is constantly changing and that what worked yesterday is different from what may work in the next month. The landscape environment changes with the seasons and time.

Learnscaping Your Annual Meetings
Like landscaping, meeting professionals and conference organizers need to consider learnscaping their events.

“A learnscape is a learning ecology,” says Informal Learning author and education expert Jay Cross. [I confess. I'm a Jay Cross and Internet Time Alliance junkie. I devour most of what they write with passion!]

Learnscapes are places where learning programs take place. They are designed so that learners can interact with each other, the facilitator and the content. Learners are not bound by rows of chairs and long winded diatribes rather they are engaged with each other self-directing their own learning in a variety of ways.

I like to apply Cross’ learnscape concepts to the annual conference environment. Just as professional landscapers study the existing location, a learnscape designer starts with studying the existing conference setting. They view the conference experience through the lens of learning before they begin their planning. They want to ensure that they are providing a variety of ways to optimize learning and not just using a one size fits all learning model.

Traditional Conference Education Strategies
Traditional conference organizers often start by building their education sessions from the ground up. They use the standard training program, typical passive speaker presentation and classroom settings as the only valid way for someone to learn. Their conferences are flush with talking heads, courses, sessions, theatre style seating and ultimately, passive attendees.

Embracing Learnscaping
Conference organizers that embrace learnscapes focus on creating flexible environments that nurture learning rather than just talking heads that attempt to force information into attendees’ brains. They create both informal and formal learning opportunities that allow attendees a choice in their learning.  They provide a great fertilizer blend of learning opportunities that include top-down authoritative controlled presentations along with horizontal, peer-to-peer, networked learning. They leave the choice of learning to the participant.

In addition to traditional formal training courses, meeting professionals that embrace learnscaping provide environments that are conducive to self-directed, community interactions among likeminded attendees .They intentionally set up informal public areas with a variety of seating options including lounge chairs, sofas, and highboys in small groupings. They ensure that these areas have plenty of free Wi-Fi access, electricity and recharge stations. They encourage attendees to use these areas to brainstorm, build communities, collaborate, conceptualize, coach, converse, co-create, explain, explore concepts, forge partnerships, inform, learn from each other, mentor one another, problem solve, share ideas, teach each other and tell stories. Sometimes they even seed these areas with subject matter experts to share specific bite size content or for question and answers.

Embracing learnscapes means welcoming natural, organic social interactions. It’s about seeing attendees as natural organisms in the nature of learning. Gardeners don’t control plants. They ensure that plants have all the elements for survival and growth and get out of the way. They plant seeds, water them, provide the right soil mix and watch them grow. They don’t stand over those seeds and lecture them with more information assuming that will provide the right ROI.

The Learnscaper’s Goal
A landscaper’s goal is to create a harmonious environment that is pleasing to the senses and takes advantage of everything available. A meeting professional  that has adopted a learnscape mindset has a goal of creating an environment that increases the participant’s longevity and learning as well as the sustained health of the conference organization.

What aspects of learnscaping appeal to you most? What concerns you? What do you wish conference organizers provided at the annual meetings you attend? How can you incorporate more learnscaping into your future events and meetings?

How do you define education?

Seriously, how do you define education? How would you define information? Is there a difference in education and information or are those words synonymous?

Think about the annual conferences that you attend. Do they provide education, information, both, or neither?

Education Or Information?
In the early 1990′s I was working for Keep Texas Beautiful (KTB), part of the Keep America Beautiful affiliate network. I managed KTB’s education, workshops and youth/children’s events in addition to helping plan the annual conference and meetings. Much of my programming was funded from state and national grants that had some narrow restrictions on how the money could be spent.

During my second year at KTB, we decided to hold a children’s and youth conference in conjunction with the annual conference.  It was one of Texas’ first statewide kid’s environmental conferences. In order to secure sponsorship and grant funding, I was faced with answering the above question: Was the kid’s conference providing education or information?

As a professional educator, I was puzzled by the question. Of course we were providing education. Or so I thought.

In designing the children’s and youth conference, I secured several top Texas educators to help plan, manage and facilitate the three day event with me. The first question I asked each educator was the same one I was being asked: Were we providing education or information at this environmental kid’s conference?

We each struggled with the question and came to some amazing enlightenment. Much of our traditional annual conference programming was actually the sharing of information and not education. It was training at its best, something done by a presenter “to” an attendee. Not something done “with” participants guided by a facilitator.

Defining Information
Wikipedia defines information as “…an ordered sequence of symbols. As a concept, however, information has many meanings. The concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation.”

Wow, that definition says a lot. Information is a concept closely related to constrained communication and sharing data in controlled environments. Providing information is not a process of learning and applying skills.

The U.S. EPA, one of our possible youth conference grant funders, defines information as providing facts, figures and opinions. Interestingly enough, the U.S. EPA would not fund grants providing information programming or services. They would only fund education endeavors.

Defining Education
So what is education?

Wikipedia defines education as “… any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense, education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another. Education is a concept, referring to the process in which students can learn something.”

Did you catch that last sentence? Education is a concept referring to the process of learning something.

Education comes from the Latin word educare meaning “bring up” and related to educere meaning to “bring out or bring forth what is within” and ducere meaning “lead.” Literally, education is about leading others to bring out the potential from within.

Does your annual conference do that? Leading its participants to bring out their potential from within. When your conference marketing materials lists its education sessions, are they really information sessions or education sessions?

Education Is A Process Not A Product
Education is not a product of an institution or the byproduct of sitting passively in a conference session listening to a presenter. Education is the process of learning something! It requires active engagement by the learner, more than just listening to a lecture.

Hypothetically speaking, if education is just listening to a speaker present information, then why aren’t more conference attendees leaving sessions with minds full of new facts, figures and opinions. Why don’t more registrants leave a conference filled with new information having sat passively, listening to presenters for six- to eight-hours a day for three days or more? If just listening to lectures equated to the full transfer of knowledge and skills being shared, we would have an extremely intelligent society. Everyone would graduate from high school and college. All faith-based sermons would instantly produce throngs of spiritual people.

But that doesn’t happen. Why? Because education involves active participation by the learner.

The U.S EPA defines education as:
Teaching skills in

• Critical thinking
• Problem solving
• Collaboration
• Decision making
• Evaluation and analysis.

Education involves helping others identify the facts, make their own judgments and opinions, and then learn how to apply the facts in various situations. Education is about understanding the consequences of our actions before we make choices.

The first KTB Kid’s Environmental Conference was a success. We had more than 300 young people attend our three day event. And we provided a mix of information and education for our attendees. We took the Keep America Beautiful Five Step Attitude and Behavior Change System and applied it to our conference:

1. Get the facts.
2. Involve the people. (Let them make judgments, form opinions and evaluate choices based on the facts. Let them discuss the facts.)
3. Plan systematically (collaborate, problem solve)
4. Focus on results.
5. Provide positive reinforcements. 

How do these definitions of education and information affect your planning of conferences or meetings? Which do you prefer, listening to information or being engaged in learning? What do you think is the right ratio of presenting information to being engaged in education at conferences and events?

When was the last time you visited a museum?

Picture from Brooklyn Museum Graffiti Exhibit 2006 source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooklyn_museum/212671060/sizes/m/

Nina Simon‘s Complicity, Intimacy, Community post about fostering personal relationships with visitors in small and large spaces brought back a flood of memories of some of my museum experiences. You should read it and then come back here. Go ahead, I’ll be here when you finish.

My Museum Experiences In My Twenties
In my twenties, I had the pleasure of helping Dallas Natural History Museum plan and create some exhibits. I was a docent, trainer and event professional in addition to my day job.  I hosted many weekend sleepovers for groups of 30, 50 and 100 kids in that museum. Yeah, what was I thinking? Actually, it was awesomesauce for sure. Ok, I digress.

I recall one experience of working on an environmental exhibit about garbage, trash and recycling. As a content expert (I was known as the Garbage Guru back then) and educator, my task was to help the designers dream up large, hands-on interactive exhibits. Those exhibits were to serve as focal points that entertained, educated and allowed multiple people to play with them at one time. These were not to be the typical poster or 3-D mannequin exhibits. They were to be participatory to increase memory retention and learning.

Applying Museum Exhibit Design Thoughts To Meetings
During those brainstorming sessions, the museum exhibit designers taught me a lot. I learned about the need to create opportunities for strangers to participate together, create community, develop closeness with one another and foster a sense of a safe place to explore the unknown. Little did I know that these designers were giving me a blueprint for annual conferences meeting, events and tradeshow experiences.

Nina Simon’s blog addresses applying Web 2.0 principles of engagement, networking and community in museum environments. In her recent post she described an exchange with a colleague about her experience in a large museum.

Simon said, “It didn’t require the staff at the front desk remembering her name or building a personal relationship with her. It required a certain kind of place and feeling that visitors manage (mostly) on their own.”

Her point struck a chord with me. As meeting and event professionals, it is our job to facilitate an atmosphere, sometimes in massive venues, that encourages attendees to build personal relationships, and manage complicity and community on their own.

So how do we do that? Practically speaking, how do we foster and encourage community, intimacy and participation in events of 500 to 25,000 people?

Eight Tips To Encourage Complicity, Intimacy And Participation At Your Next Event
Here are eight tips to help you encourage complicity and intimacy among strangers and friends at your next event. Hat tips to Nina Simone for helping me spin some of these too.

1. Set the stage early and often.
Let meeting attendees know how they can participate and what to expect early and often before they arrive onsite. Use email, chats, conference ecommunities, YouTube videos and social networks to share these ideas and set the stage. Start sessions declaring them safe spaces to openly share opinions, ideas and thoughts. Encourage others to join in and share their voice.

2. Seek buy in through agreements and ground rules.
Create and share your own COPA (conference organizer, presenter and attendee) agreement.

3. Become a conduit to experiences.
Ask staff and organization leaders to act as friends, partners and helpers instead of enforcers. Get them to set the tone.

4. Secure community greeters and seed group discussions with facilitators.
Recruit organization or local volunteers to serve as community greeters, encouraging attendees to touch, look with their eyes and ears, talk and reach out to one another. Use facilitators to help ignite small group discussions.

5. Use large open spaces wisely.
Create informal lounges in large open spaces where people can mingle, chat and greet one another comfortably. Benches, couches, groupings of informal seating along with recharge stations are great additions.

6. Encourage tradeshow exhibits that are open and able to serve many at once.
Encourage tradeshow exhibitors to create open spaces that display their products or services in ways that can be used comfortably by large groups of visitors. Hands on, interactive exhibits will attract crowds. Are visitors seen as distracting others from the experience and therefore some are missing out? Or are visitors seen as partners helping others join in the participation?

7.  Invite group play using displays with social objects.
Nina Simon explains that artifacts and social objects foster conversations around attendees’ shared experiences. Create experiences and tradeshow floor events that attract crowds and invite group play. Consider an exhibit of artifacts from the past five, ten or twenty years of the industry. Place flat screens with rotating images in large open spaces near small group lounge areas to spark conversations.

8. Ask presenters to use interactive learning experiences.
You can read more about that here, here and here.

What tips would you add to encourage complicity and participation in conferences and events? How could your encourage group play and use social objects at your next conference or event?

Change is the constant today.

What would happen if conference organizers released information about their annual event and called it a perpetual beta version?

What if a specific number of presentations were not identified and instead were labeled beta and the organizers asked attendees to help them co-create the sessions? What if some of the sessions were labeled with controversial topics with a caveat that the information was in beta? What if some of the beta sessions had pre-reading required that offered diverse viewpoints without any conclusions and instructions that onsite attendees would continue the conversations?

Would you be willing as a meeting professional to relinquish some control and provide a beta conference? Would you as an attendee be willing to participate in a conference format in beta?

Uncertainty Engages The Mind
Think of it like this. Why do you go to a baseball, basketball, football game or other spectator sport? Is it because you know who is going to win? Do you attend because you know what is going to happen each second?

No, you attend because the thrill of uncertainty is enticing. Not knowing is exactly what keeps you glued to your seat and watching. Uncertainty engages the mind.

Reading a great book or watching a suspenseful movie have the same affect. The uncertainty attracts us. Knowing what is next is not as exciting or engaging. (Read more about this process in Order Out Of Choas: Learning To Embrace Uncertainty which was a catalyst for my thoughts about uncertainty engaging the mind.)

Psychotherapist Mel Schwartz compares predictability with uncertainty like this:

• Predictable = certain = already known in advance = no need to really be here = a non-participatory life.
• Uncertainty = not knowing in advance = fully engaged in creating the future event = participatory in our life’s creation.

Which type of conference experience would you like to provide for your attendees? One that offers predictable, non participatory experiences? Or one that offers uncertainty, vitality and the ability for attendees to participate and co-create in engaged experiences?

The Perpetual Beta
Software developers identify their programs as alpha, beta, release candidate or general availability. According to Wikipedia, “Perpetual beta is a term used to describe software or a system which remains at the beta development stage for an extended or even indefinite period of time. It is often used by developers in order to allow them to constantly release new features that might not be fully tested.”

Traditional software companies like Microsoft release new versions of software every couple of years in the general availability phase. Customers don’t see new features until after they’ve been tested in beta format, behind the scenes. Beta versions are limited to employee or a small handpicked group of users outside the company.

Netscape changed the traditional software process and released both beta and general availability versions. Netscape saw its users differently as valued partners, working in tandem to improve the product. They welcomed input, recommendations and suggestions in the beta process so that the users experience was ultimately better.

Google is the perfect example of a company that embraces perpetual beta. Google Search stayed in beta for more than a year. Google Buzz and Google Wave are two examples of products that are released before finished. Their beta versions are continually changing, morphing and improving with the users input.

Conference Learning Is Perpetual Beta
Tim O’Reilly says that the perpetual beta uprising is a core principle of Web 2.0. Here are some of the Web 2.0 beta characteristics he identifies:

• Data sources that get richer as more people use them
• Harnessing collective intelligence
• Trusting users as co-developers

 These principles have great implications for conference learning. All learning is co-creation: a process of a learner and an outside agent that impacts the process.

Conference organizers that embrace perpetual beta experiences develop a relationship of mutual self-interest with the attendees. They see attendees as co-creators of the experience, the knowledge and the program. They recognize that information changes, unlearning often needs to occur and that there is always room for improvement.

They invite attendees to help shape the conversation, add their experiences to the content and drive the discussion. They relinquish control of a top-down, hierarchal presentation with only one person in the know treating the rest as not-in-the-know. They harness their collective intelligence of their attendees about specific topics and issues.

Practically Speaking What Does Conference Learning In Perpetual Beta Look Like
Meeting professionals that embrace a perpetual beta experience indentify some umbrella topics, even those that are controversial, and then invite attendees to engage in discourse about these issues at the face-to-face experience. Sessions are labeled with overarching topics and facilitators.

Instead of content matter specialists, event professionals secure experienced facilitators skilled at moderating diverse views. The attendees serve as subject matter experts each with their own experiences and content. Learner outcomes identify the processes used for attendee enrichment, discussion and engagement instead of specific knowledge and skills.

During the session, facilitators help attendees separate facts from emotions, fiction from truth while providing frameworks for them to see new contexts. The session content is unpredictable, in flux as attendees drive and shape the discourse and outcomes.

Conference organizers that embrace perpetual beta experiences give attendees the incentive to participate in an ongoing relationship with them. Beta learning experiences empowers attendees to decide what is good enough and when to say the content is final. The uncertainty of the subject outcome engages attendees’ minds. It invites participation.

What are the consequences of planning and securing conference content six to eight months in advance of the program? What changes would meeting professionals have to embrace in order to implement some perpetual beta conference programming? What are the benefits of producing perpetual beta conferences? How do you feel about the idea?

You’ve got 15 minutes to dash into your favorite hardware store and purchase some finishing nails for a project.

You know exactly where they are as you’ve walked passed them many times. As you enter the store a sense of dread overwhelms you. The management has rearranged the products and aisles. You look up and sigh in relief that each aisle is labeled with a large sign to help you navigate the big box store.

You just accessed your semantic memory lane.

Five Memory Lanes
Just like the hardware store aisles, your brain has at least five distinct memory lanes: automatic, emotional, episodic, procedural and semantic. These lanes store information gathered through the senses in specific parts of the brain.

The challenge for meeting professionals is to provide conference and event experiences that intentionally access as many different memory lanes as possible. Providing experiences that cause attendees to use the automatic, episodic and procedural lanes as well as the emotional lane can create long-term, lasting memories. Accessing the semantic memory lane is the most commonly used process in conferences and events and the most challenging to use effectively.

Let’s take a look at improving annual meeting experiences by strolling down the semantic memory lane.

Semantic Memory
Semantic memory stores memories of words in the hippocampus.  We hear and see semantic information from lectures, movies, PowerPoint presentations, reading and most importantly, words. Most conference presentations rely heavily on semantic memory.

When the brain senses that new incoming information is factual, it triggers the hippocampus to search its files for matching information. Semantic memory is fueled by associations, comparisons and similarities. If the new information connects to previous information, it’s sent to another part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, to sort and sift the old and new material. If it finds a connection to older material, it may be added to form long-term memory.

The challenge with semantic memory is that the information must be processed in several ways. Often conference participants try to retain words and facts in short-term and working memory instead of accessing semantic memory. The downside of semantic memory is that the process must be repeated several times before long-term memory is formed.

Tips For Engaging Conference Semantic Strategies
Because strolling down the semantic memory lane relies on working memory and operates word by word, it requires the most effort. Here are seven tips to help conference and meeting attendees to build semantic memories.

1. Ask speakers to present information in short chunks.
The brain needs time to process the information after hearing each short chunk of information. Segment presentations into ten-minute vignettes anchored with a story at the beginning and the opportunity to connect to previously learned information at the end. After each chunk, take a break and let attendees process the information with each other.

2. Encourage speakers to provide semantic hooks in their presentations.
Semantic hooks connect the new information to past information through allegories, associations, comparisons, contrasts and similarities.

3. Intentionally schedule adult white-space informal learning opportunities.
Remember semantic memory is about words. Scheduling time for attendees to use their words to discuss a topic causes them to summarize new points, explain associations and draw from other factual memories already stored in the semantic memory lane. 

4. Promote the use of graphic organizers.
Mind mapping and webbing paint powerful images in the brain. They help breakdown concepts and processes into smaller chunks that the semantic memory can easily store. Presenters can provide template mind maps with missing information for participants to complete.

5. Use peer teaching strategies.
Have attendees pair with each other and take turns re-teaching or sharing how they will apply the information they just learned. This gives participants the opportunity to evaluate and synthesize material.

6. Ask participants to paraphrase or summarize important information.
Ask attendees to write a one-sentence summary or paraphrase of the most important point to them. Then ask them to share those sentences in small groups of ten or less. The repetition helps solidify the information within the semantic memory.

7. Use mnemonic devices like acronyms, acrostics, peg systems and rhymes to learn new information.
Many people may recall Roy G Biv as the way to remember the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo and violet. These methods help place information in both automatic and semantic memories. Encourage speakers to use mnemonic devices or ask participants to create them during specific presentations.

Most semantic strategies create word and text anchors that place the information in other memory lanes as well. Providing this dual lane strategy helps ensure long-term memory recall and learning. Ultimately, that makes your conference or event unforgettable.  

What are some other semantic strategies you’ve used successfully in the past? What have you seen done at conferences or events that engaged the semantic memory lane?

Have you ever lost your keys? Your wallet? Your cell phone? Your favorite pen?

I have. Well, I didn’t really lose them. I just forgot where I put them.

I have a ritual of walking into my house and always placing my keys, wallet, favorite pen and cell phone in the same spot. That way I always know where they are.

But every now and then, they aren’t where they are supposed to be. They seem to have vanished.

I’ve noticed that if I walk into my home and my hands are full, I may unintentionally put them down along with the other items in my hands. Or if my mind is distracted with something important and I neglect to follow my usual routine, I’ll put my keys and wallet in an obscure place. Or if my phone rings as I enter the house, I get distracted and set them down.

So what do I do when I’ve lost my keys? I’ve already tried using my automatic memory (see below for more info). I failed my automatic memory by not following my regular routine of placing them in the same spot.

Maybe my episodic memory will work. I go back to where I last remember having my keys, wallet and cell phone in my hand. That location may help me remember.

Or I try retracing my steps by using my procedural memory. I pick up anything I had with me, go out to my car and start over. I walk the same path again hoping that helps me find them.

As a last resort, I may access my semantic memory and use my higher order thinking skills. “What could I have done with my keys? Did I drop them by accident? Are they in the grass, on my porch, in my mailbox? If I were a set of keys, where would I be?”

I may become rather emotional if I can’t find my keys, wallet and cell phone although my emotional memory won’t help much in finding them. But, we all recall the emotional experience of losing our wallet and trying to find it, right? That emotional highjack triggered by our amygdala is hard to forget.

This scenario illustrates how our five long-term memory lanes can be used to recall information. The challenge for conference and meeting organizers is to design event and education that access these five memory lanes to increase learning and retention.

The Five Memory Lanes
Much like the aisles of our favorite department store, the brain has memory lanes that act as file cabinets storing experiences, facts and learning from an event. For learning to be permanent, it has to follow specific paths or lanes to be stored. Unfortunately, our brain is not like a recorder that stores all the specific details. The information is filtered by our brains, interpreted and stored in various parts of our brain. It’s not as easy as rewinding and hitting play to get an accurate account of what happened.

The brain has at least five memory lanes—automatic, emotional, episodic, procedural and semantic—that can be used for permanent storage of information. Some neuroscientists have identified additional lanes as well.  Let’s take a look at three of those memory lanes.

Automatic Memory
Brain presenter Eric Jensen refers to automatic memory as conditioned response memory. Specific stimuli automatically trigger the memory or information that is stored in the cerebellum.

It could be a song playing. As soon as you hear the first few notes, your brain acts as the game show Name That Tune, and you begin to sing the song.

The alphabet, multiplication tables, and your ability to decode words are a few things that you’ve already stored in your automatic memory. Your ability to read–not to comprehend–is stored there as well.

Tips to create automatic memories in meetings and events

• Music, music, music. Change the lyrics to a popular tune and make them about your event or an important theme. Ask attendee’s to create their own pop tune remixes about the upcoming event and share them via audio or video recording.
• Use repetition and oral conditioning (teach attendees to say out loud a phrase every time a specific word is used).
• Use quiz and game shows during sessions.

Episodic Memory
Episodic memory deals with location and is sometimes referred to as contextual or spatial memory. This memory lane is stored in the hippocampus which stores factual information. This memory lane associates learning with a location.

For example, “Where were you when learned about the September 11 terrorist attacks?” If you’re like me, you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing. You can even recall who was with you at that time.

To use episodic memory effectively takes some thought, energy and creativity. Focus on the fact that the brain likes novelty and is intrigued by it.

Tips to create episodic memories in meetings and events

• Create unusual and quirky environments. Allow presenters to hang signs, pictures, posters and use up lighting in their presentation rooms.
• Accessorize! It might sound childish, but it works. Ask your emcee and presenters to use accessories when appropriate during their presentations. Hats, scarves, masks, costumes enhance the learning experience and episodic memory lane.
• Create untraditional meeting environments. Get out of that boxed venue room. Take it to the tradeshow floor, outdoors or even into the hallways. The more eclectic the better.
• Use a variety of informal seating options from couches, lounge chairs, chaise to exercise balls. 

Emotional Memory
Emotional memory and tips to creating emotional event memories were discussed here.

Procedural Memory
Information from procedural memory, often called the muscle memory, is stored in the cerebellum. Once a procedure becomes routine, such as the ability to ride a bike, it is stored. Your ability to drive, roller blade, ski, and skip are stored as procedural memories.

Tips to create procedural memories in meetings and events

• Use repetition of procedures (such as how to use to a CRM system) to create a strong long-term memory pathway.
• Create some meeting rituals, such as when people enter a general session, they are to find one person they don’t know and introduce themselves. Or before leaving this session, find one person and tell them how you’ll implement something you learned.
• Ask attendees to invent a procedure for specific learnings that they will use when they return to their office. Have them write it down. The repetition of the procedure will help create a long-term memory.

Semantic Memory
In the next post, we’ll cover the semantic memory, the most used mental strategy in conferences and events.

To Recap
A basic understanding of our brains and its memory lanes can help conference and event organizers provide great experiences that increase recall and learning. Using specific mental strategies will help attendees create powerful and relevant learning experiences that are easier to recall and apply.

Your Turn
What are some of your most memorable conference or event experiences that tapped one of the memory lanes? What tips would you add to these to help access emotional, episodic, procedural and semantic memories?

On May 11, 2010, I presented a Webinar for KRM Information on Designing Next Generation Conference Education Sessions: Creating an Environment for Informal and Formal Learning in a Digital Age. Update May 13, 2010: Listen to the free recording of the sixty-minute presentation.

As promised, here are the slides from the presentation. Enjoy.

After viewing the slides from the presentation, what questions do you have? What steps can you take to create more participatory and interactive education sessions at your conference and event?